


Creep

by Estelathan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Hurt Dean Winchester, Light Angst, POV First Person, Protective Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:08:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6636799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estelathan/pseuds/Estelathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's having a shitty week... When a simple salt-and-burn goes down hill everything else is pretty quick to follow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

_‘It’s been a long-ass day,’_ I reflected miserably as I slowly eased the Impala out of the motel’s parking lot and onto the highway, trying my damnedest to ignore the throbbing headache that was steadily building behind my eyes. If I were being honest, and wasn’t that a hoot considering the way I buried things deep down like a dog with a freaking bone these days, I’d have to admit it had been a shitty day as well. No. Wait, scrap that—it had been a shitty freaking _week_.

 

What had started out as a simple run-of-the-mill salt and burn in a small town smack dab in the middle of the Appalachia countryside had turned violent quickly. Despite the country air and beautiful scenery it seemed people in this town were prone to feuding and the one between the Jognson and White families actually stretched back decades. It was a bit mind-blowing to think about really considering Dean and I had never stayed in one place long enough to strike up a feud with anyone, let alone one that managed to stretch generations. At any rate after a little digging we’d managed to figure out the ghost was Beatrice White, a girl who’d only been sixteen at the time of her untimely death, who’d taken to haunting the ancestors of the Jognson family blaming them for her passing.

 

It hadn’t been pretty. By the time Dean and I had caught wind of the case Beatrice had been on a roll and managed to trash the family’s house and barn and in the commotion that ensued a farmhand had ended up dead. Needless to say time hadn’t been on a side, but then again when had it ever? We had split up- Dean going to talk to the witnesses while I dove into the research. There were benefits to a small town; everyone knew everyone's name and business, for example, but when there were more people than animals per square mile and bloodlines that stretched back into oblivion, well that made finding one grave out of the stack dang near impossible. I should have realized as much, research is my thing as Dean is quick to remind me, but damn if I didn’t want to solve this one as fast as Dean did before anyone else got hurt. I should have known better.

 

The records from Beatrice’s time were like the faces of the tombstones, old and crumbling and nearly faded into oblivion, and in my haste what I had initially pinpointed as Beatrice White’s grave turned out to belong to _Betsy_ White instead. Even now, after it’s all been said and done, I can still feel my cheeks heat up in shame as I glance away from the road for a second to watch Dean, who’s thankfully asleep, in the passenger seat. Even out cold he looks bad and I can’t help the way my eyes roam over him worriedly because it’s my fault he got injured in the first place.

 

Starting at the top of him the split lip and the tell-tale black smudging of what will be an impressive black eye in a few hours are the most noticeable injuries but they don't bother me as much as the realization that even out cold Dean isn't relaxed. His body is stiff as a board where he's leaning up in the space between the seat and the Impala's passenger door, a grimace perfectly etched into his sleeping face. He had brushed off my questions earlier, nothing new there, but the way he's sitting just confirms my earlier suspicions of the bruising that has to be hiding under his clothing. That, added to the way he's cradling his right arm to his chest still, and we had fought over that one because I'm sure the arm is broken no matter what Dean may insist otherwise, makes me want to turn around and head back to the nearest hospital but I know Dean would have my head if I did. After the hunt had went sour, and that was labeling it generously, we had both agreed to blow town as fast as possible, and so here we were.

 

I let out a sigh that echoes in the stillness of the car as I reluctantly turn my attention back onto the road. While my brother has been through worse, far worse, it’s my fault he’s injured now and more than anything it bothers me. Dean may have a guilt complex when it comes to me getting hurt but he never seems to grasp onto the fact that it's a two-way street nor the fact that I'm not content with just sitting back and letting it go either.

 

Beatrice hadn’t taken kindly to our attempts at putting her to rest; even if we did end up burning the wrong bones in the first place, somehow she knew we were coming for her. We had just climbed back into the Impala after a night spent digging and refilling what we had thought was Beatrice's grave when Dean's phone had gone off. It was Mel Jognson, one of the witnesses we had interviewed earlier, begging us to help her. Beatrice, it seemed, had appeared again and was wrecking everything in sight and giving no sign of stopping anytime soon. Needless to say we needed to do something and fast, so Dean and I ended up splitting up. It was back to the records hall for me to hopefully find the right location of the grave this time while Dean went to rescue Mel from Beatrice.

 

I’d like to say it all worked out in the end, that I found the grave in time and burned the bitch while Dean got Mel to safety . . . but it didn’t work out that way. In our line of work you learn fast, and often the hard way, that life isn’t a fairy tale with a happy ending, and that night was no exception to the rule. I _did_ manage to find Beatrice’s grave but by the time I got it dug by myself and lit her up I was too late. I didn’t find out later but by the time Dean made it to Mel’s house Beatrice had killed the woman . . . and had targeted him next. He’d fought back, of course, but it was a helluva fight and if I’d been just a minute or two later in holding up my end of things it was possible that Dean wouldn’t be sitting beside me now. I didn’t tell Dean, but when he told me that, half out of his mind from the pain as I dragged him out of the house, it felt like my insides had frozen solid. I had nearly gotten my brother killed all because I had messed up. Thankfully Dean didn’t notice my distress, and thank god for that, because there weren’t enough words in my head to encompass the deluge of thoughts racing around my brain.

 

_I had nearly gotten my brother killed._ The thought still stabs me like a knife to my heart and despite myself I can feel the leather of the Impala’s steering wheel creak under the pressure of my hands curling tightly around it. Dying may be an unavoidable part of the job, but I don’t think I could ever forgive myself if Dean died because of something I’d done. He’d already died because of me before; I would be damned if I would let it ever happen again.


	2. Chapter 2

I found myself glancing over at my brother again, frowning at how pale he seemed to be in the weak, fading light of the day. After I had dragged Dean out of the house and back to the motel he had been hell-bent on gathering up our stuff and heading out as fast as possible, but I had insisted that we slowed down a little. I didn’t really have a problem with blowing town fast considering how epic-ly I had screwed things up but Dean was hurt and my head was starting to pound and I put my foot down. There was no point in hurrying when neither one of us was in any condition to drive, and Dean just proved it when he crumpled like a folded dollar bill when I insisted. That had been a little over twelve hours ago, but looking at Dean now it seemed the time to rest hadn’t done much to help him. “Dammit!” I cursed softly to myself and shifted my focus back to the road, though this time I was looking for signs for the nearest clinic. Screw our ‘no hospitals’ rule—I was getting Dean checked out one way or the other and it was going to be before we got back to the bunker.

 

For once in my life luck seemed to be on my side as I spotted a sign for a walk-in clinic about fifteen minutes later and I wasted no time in pulling in there and ushering Dean inside. When he was finally back in a room getting looked at I collapsed into the nearest chair and rested my aching head in my hands. “Ugh..” I groaned as I closed my eyes and did my best to massage my aching temples. It seemed the aspirin I had popped earlier before we left wasn’t going to cut it if the upbeat tempo thumping away in my skull was any indication, but I had no time to question it because a soft-spoken voice cut through my agony: “Sir?”

 

I looked up to find a middle-aged woman with obvious bleach-bottle hair and pink scrubs sporting ridiculous-looking flowers looking down at me with an odd expression on her face. My heart ramped at the look because something obviously had happened to Dean and she had been the unfortunate soul who had the luck to come tell me but before I could get my mouth open to ask any questions she rushed ahead with a breathy voice as if she were forcing the words out: "Are you Agent Smith?"

 

It's stupid to admit, but I'm pretty sure I full-out gaped at her because how could she possibly have known that? Our suits had been left in the car and neither Dean nor I had flashed our badges since coming in here, wanting to stay as unremarkable as possible since we were using fraudulent cards to pay for whatever it was they were doing back there to him. Still, I attempted to cover up my slip with a cough and an apologetic look with what Dean always refers to as my 'puppy-eyes' and hoped that the woman would overlook my oddness. "Ahem," I coughed, casting a discreet look at the door Dean had been taken through before directing my attention on the woman. "Yes I am. Is there something I can help you with?"

 

“Would you come with me?” The woman—her name tag said ‘Maggie’—asked as she gestured towards the door I had been eyeballing, but I didn’t miss the way her tone had changed towards me. Her voice had grown colder since I’d admitted to being an agent and the look she’d given me had turned to full-out loathing, yet I pretended to ignore all of it since it appeared she was taking me in the direction of my brother and slowly got to my feet. I had questions of course, like namely wanting to know what had happened to Dean for him to whip out the whole FBI charade in the first place, but I managed to tamper them down as I followed Maggie through the waiting room and back through the door. I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting to see—perhaps Dean drugged out of his mind and fighting off anyone who came too close (it’d happened before with disastrous results)—but shockingly enough the back half of the clinic was quiet except for the normal hustle and bustle going on in these small places. Dean was nowhere to be seen, or heard, as Maggie lead me down a short hallway before stopping at a doorway on the right. Thinking that my recalcitrant brother was inside I followed along blindly but Dean wasn’t in the room. Nobody was and I turned, confused, but by then it was already too late—Maggie had followed me into the room and was in the process of locking the door behind her.

 

“What’s going on here?” I demanded, suddenly wishing I hadn’t been so insistent earlier in telling Dean he couldn’t bring weapons into a place like this. _‘Smooth move there jackass!’_ I berated myself, but seriously: who would think they’d need a gun at a clinic? If I managed to get out of this without getting my ass kicked I had absolutely no doubts I would never hear the end of it from Dean.

 

Now that we were alone Maggie dropped all remaining pretenses at civility, not that there had been a whole hell of a lot from what I’d seen, and outright glared at me. “You don’t get to ask questions!” She snapped and I had to give her credit for her gall, because seriously? She thought I was a federal agent and she was speaking to me like that? “After what you and your partner did, you don’t get to ask any questions.” And there it was—I wanted to groan in frustration because despite the silence Dean had obviously done something to attract the wrong kind of attention and here I was, left to clean up whatever the fallout was going to be. “He’s not normally like this.” I apologized and flashed a weak smile, hoping I could smooth over whatever it was that Dean had done even as I mentally cursed myself for thinking he could be alone with a doctor for ten minutes while I nursed a damn headache.

 

I fully expected Maggie to launch into the gory details of what had happened, details I was fully prepared to go through again at length preferably on the way back to Kanas after I rescued my brother’s stubborn hide, but instead the woman sucked in a deep breath and let me have it: “You agents are one of a kind—you think you can just stand there and flash a pretty smile and we’ll just lap it up like dogs because we aren’t from some fancy town, well I’m telling you now I’m not buying it! You should be in jail for what you’ve done—you’re all sauntering around here like you’re big shots while my sister is dead? Do you even care? She’s dead and it’s all _your_ fault!” By the time she finally trailed off her voice had rose to a high-pitch screech.

 

That . . . wasn’t what I had been expecting and for a moment I was clearly at a loss as to what she was even talking about before it hit me like a ton of bricks: she was talking about Mel, the woman who had been killed by Beatrice. Ice water coursed through my veins as I stupidly opened and closed my mouth before finally stammering out “I-I’m sorry. . .” Oh god, was I ever sorry for what had happened to that poor woman; I already had the feeling her death was going to haunt me for a long time coming.

 

At my weak apology Maggie scoffed, the sound echoing loudly in the room, before she suddenly launched herself at me! She barely came up to my shoulders but that didn’t stop the desperate fury that made her kick and lash out, hitting whatever part of me she could get to. “It’s your fault! It’s all YOUR fault!” She screamed, hysterical, as I did my best to get away. Now I may be a trained fighter but I don’t hit women, and besides I couldn’t deny that she was right—it was my fault her sister was dead, therefore I did my best to block her punches even as I tried to back away from her. It wasn’t easy; she just kept coming at me with a furious look in her eyes but finally I managed to maneuver my way past her and beeline for the door.

 

I didn’t look back even though I could still hear her screams echoing behind me. I just kept going until I found Dean, and after quickly making sure he was still in one piece (thankfully he was) I was ready to go. I honestly don’t know how I managed to get the both of us out of there. By the time we hit the parking lot and Impala, I was running on full-on autopilot mode, a fact that Dean was too blissfully drugged out to notice to which I was glad because I probably couldn't have responded to any of his questions had I wanted to. _'How dare you just leave her like that!'_ The woman's--Maggie--voice echoed loudly in my head, adding strength to the tempest that was already going on in there nonstop. I wanted to clenched my eyes shut, press my hands against my ears, and curl into a ball right there in the middle of the parking lot. It must have been sheer force of will or something because I managed not to do any of those things, instead I worked to settle Dean in the passenger seat again, making sure he was as comfortable as possible given his current state, before going around to the driver's side.


	3. Chapter 3

I made it all of ten miles down the highway, not even out of sight of the damn town limits before I couldn't take it anymore. Somewhere along the line my breathing had ramped up in tune with the pounding in my head and together they persuaded my stomach to join in on my misery. I barely had time to pull the Impala off the road and scramble out before I was heaving out the meager food I had managed to eat earlier. I went down hard on my knees in the gravel as I continued to heave, and not for the first time since this miserable day had started wished for something to come along and put me out of my complete and utter misery. Ugh!

 

I honestly don't know how long I was out there puking my guts out there alongside the highway but it must have been long enough because by the time I was heaving up nothing but empty air I felt a trembling touch on my back and looked up to find Dean kneeling there beside me. "Sammy? Why didn't you tell me you were sick?" He asked, voice full of concern despite the fact he still looked like ten miles of bad road himself. His eyes were glassy in the light from the Impala's open door, and I was mildly impressed that he was even awake because the drugs were obviously still going strong in his system.

 

“M’ fine…” I mumbled as I forced myself to straighten up from the crouch I had been bent in, only to realize the trembling I’d felt had been coming from me and not Dean. I was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm and stiff as hell from kneeling there for so long to boot. It just wasn’t my night—yet I opened my mouth to reassure Dean I was fine, it must have been something I’d ate, but he beat me to the punch. “Bullshit!” My brother declared, and before I could say or do anything to stop him, he had reached out and was pulling me in towards him heedless of his freshly casted arm. _‘Oh, screw it!’_ I thought as I let myself be tugged around like a rag doll until I was carefully leaning up against my brother. There was little resisting Dean when he got it in his mind to mother-hen me and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t enjoy the comfort he provided despite the fact I was well past the age to be cared for by my older brother.

 

Dean, attentive bastard that he is, just chuckled in my ear as if he could read my mind and did his best to shore the both of us up even as he forced me to meet his gaze. “I thought we weren’t going to lie to each other anymore?” He asked, the eyebrow above the un-blackened eye raising as he looked me over. “If you aren’t sick then what’s going on?”

 

I had fully intended to lie through my teeth to Dean until he brought up our quasi-promise to each other and took the wings right out from my metaphorical sails. I could still lie, of course, and tell him I’d had an upset stomach earlier or some other line but I couldn’t do it. Maybe it was the earnest look upon his face, or maybe it was the fact that I was just so freaking zapped, but either way the truth came tumbling out: “I-I ran into Mel’s sister at the clinic.” I confessed softly, looking away so I wouldn’t have to see the look on Dean’s face. “She said some— she was upset about her sister.” I stumbled over the words, forcing them out faster. “She said she blamed me for her death.”

 

It hurt to hear the words spoken out loud again, even if they weren’t being shouted this time, and I couldn’t help but wince at hearing them again because it was all true. If I’d done my damn job properly then Mel would probably still be alive and Dean wouldn’t be injured and I probably wouldn’t be here on the side of a highway on the verge of breaking down like a little kid.

 

“She’s wrong.” Dean says firmly, his voice brooking no argument yet I manage to pull away and gape at him anyway. How can he say such a thing when we had argued about it earlier? It was my screw-up with the graves that had led to this whole mess, and while I may not have been the one to actually kill her, Mel’s death was on my hands. “B-but it is!” I stuttered out, feeling my frustration rise along with the familiar burn of unshed tears. “If I hadn’t screwed up in the first place, if I’d gotten the right grave she would still be alive!” I looked away, swiping a hand across my eyes quickly as if that would help disguise the fact that I was starting to crumble. “It’s my fault and we both know it!” I choked out, hating the way my voice cracked on the last word. How Dean could see anything good in me was beyond my imagination.

 

“Sam,” My brother sighed in that rumbling way of his and even without looking at him I could tell he was running his good hand through his hair, a habit that he partakes in when he’s nervous or frustrated. It’s my fault he’s feeling like this and I tense in anticipation of the chewing out that’s sure to come…only to be surprised by the feeling of Dean pulling me back in towards him again. “What am I going to do with you?” He asks, but before I can respond he’s already gone on, “Look, maybe you did point us in the wrong direction with the grave but listen to me here,” Dean’s voice raises before I can even open my mouth on that one, “it’s not your fault. You get me? Those bastards who tortured that poor girl to death and caused her to come back as a vengeful spirit are the ones to blame for all this, not you Sammy. You did everything you could to get the job done.”

 

“But—“ I start to object only to earn a patented Dean Winchester death-glare in return. “I mean it Sam,” He repeats, his voice firm in the way that I know from years of recognition that means I won’t be winning this one any time in the future. “It isn’t your fault. I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone else says, got it?”

 

“Fine.” I finally huff out in defeat, just barely resisting to roll my eyes like the kid Dean is treating me like, though I don’t really believe him. It is my fault and we both know it but I’m getting tired and cold the longer we sit here and I know it’s got to be hell for Dean with his injuries. “Let’s just get back on the road.” I suggest, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be back at the bunker.

 

Dean stares at me for a long moment with that look that clearly says he isn’t buying the bullshit I’m trying to sell to him but in the end all he does is nod in acquiescence to my request. “Yeah,” he says as he slowly makes his way back to standing again, unable to hide the wince of pain that flashes across his face as his knees crack and his body protests being stiff for so long. “Let’s go home.”

 

This isn’t over, I know that someday when we’re both healed up and feeling better Dean’s going to want to rehash this conversation but for now I’m willing to take the momentary reprieve. I straighten up alongside of him, hiding my wincing better as the thumping in my head reminds me of its presence. No matter what came in the future, I could worry about it then. For now it was long past time to head home.

 


End file.
